


Your Turn

by Sensabo



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Loss, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-25 19:48:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21361717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sensabo/pseuds/Sensabo
Summary: He cannot allow himself to forget the sounds and sighs that composed the melody of Her. So he sears the memory into his heart and wears it like a burn upon his skin, red and raw.“It’s your turn,” she says with a soft smile tainted by the sadness in her eyes.“I know,” he answers.It always is.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Sylvain Jose Gautier/Mercedes von Martritz
Comments: 9
Kudos: 71





	Your Turn

A soft cry cuts through the night, immediately pulling him from slumber. 

“Your turn.”

Half buried in the pillow, Felix manages to crack open only one eye in a tired glare. Annette smiles softly beside him, hands curled up by her face in the space between them and he wants nothing more than to reach out and pull her closer.

But he doesn’t.

”It always is.”

He frowns, the words little more than a grumbled whisper but he slowly pushes himself up anyway. The blankets pool around his hips as he rises, hands already busing with tying his hair up, out of the way. He moves away without a kiss on her forehead or a brush of his hand upon her cheek, and his heart twists emptier for it. A chill lances up his spine as his feet touch the cold floor; though the fire still softly crackles in the fireplace on the other side of the too large room, its warmth fails to reach the bed now that the deep of winter has fully settled. He ignores it as he rises and crosses the room, much in the same way he ignores certain items in the room now. Dust lingers on the piles of books that found themselves upon the dresser, the vanity, the small table beside the two armchairs before the hearth. Papers — notes, really — neatly stacked beside a few piles and flowers from the fall that were hung to dry to be pressed properly but never were. He needs to clean, he knows this — or at least allow the servants to do it for him. 

But he doesn’t and he won’t.

Felix stops before the source of the crying, soft and slow in his moments as one hand brushes the wood rails. 

There is no one left in this wing of the too large house to be bothered by the crying this late at night. Not any more.

”Nightmares again, rosebud?” He whispers softly, leaning over the crib to brush his fingers over red cheeks. His daughter cries, tiny voice and tinier fists raised. Gently, slowly like he was taught, he adjusts the blanket to swaddle her safely — snug like she likes — and cradles her close in his arms. She settles almost immediately.

He carries her over to the chairs that circled the fireplace: two large armchairs and the recently added rocking chair. As he settles into the rocking chair, he hears Annette’s voice beside him.

”Sing her a song, Felix.” 

He didn’t hear her move, draped over the armchair as she is now. It shouldn’t surprise him anymore, but a small part of him still startles. 

“I don’t sing.” He readjusted the infant’s blanket and began to rock them, the light creak of the wood blending into the crackle of the fire. 

“Hmm?” Annette taps her chin in in mock thought, that smile he so loves on her lips. “Then what was last night?”

“Your imagination.” 

She laughs, the sound clear as bells in the dead of night to his ears and he cherishes every note.

But he keeps his gaze on the child in his arms, on her round cheeks and red curls and tiny hands curled into small fists. She looks so much like Annette his heart aches.

“Sing for me, Annette. Please,” he pleads, his voice fragile as the flowers withered and buried in the snow. The world glows warmer, brighter when filled with her song; old wounds and aches dull whenever her voice wraps around him. There’s magic in Annette, something precious and delicate but indomitable all the same.

Beside him, Annette settles deeper into the chair and hums a few notes before a song fills the space between them. Light and warm, the leaf song — which she wrote the first time Felix guided her to the grassy plains one summer for a quiet lunch beneath the sycamore trees. He loved her voice, her songs — the simple melody of _her_.

It was mostly habit rather than conscious choice, when the song formed on his lips. He hummed, gentle and low — the background to her melody. When the leaf song ended, she leapt right into the next, and Felix quietly followed. They sang _Baskets_, then _Down Town_, which bled into _Swamp Beasties._ Felix followed her lead, from one song to the next — on and on, even after the small child in his arms settled into sleep. They sang long into the night.

Felix would have given nearly anything remain in that pocket of time, wrapped in melodies and memories.

But the sun always rises, and he awoke alone.

Annette is gone, as is his daughter.

A bitterness he should be used to by now lodged in his throat as he stared blankly at the blanket covering him in the rocking chair. Silence settles, much too cold and familiar, like a puzzle piece forced into his hands. But he knows the picture of this puzzle, knows the name and shape — so he clings tighter to his piece and sears it into his skin. If he must be burdened with it, if he must carry it with him, it will be on his terms and in a shape he wills. This feeling of—

A knock at the door.

No peace for the Duke.

Felix ignores the feeling, just as he ignores many things now, and rises to dress.

* * *

They came suddenly, uninvited and with a storm at their heels.

If that’s not the story of Sylvain, Felix isn’t sure what is. He frowned slightly, brow raised as they dusted the snow off themselves in the foyer of a house much too large for him.

Sylvain was all smiles, though something kept it from reaching his eyes just yet. He dusted the snow from Mercedes’ coat and cap, movements just shy of teasing — a twirl of her short hair as his fingers brushed the snow dust from her cap, a brush of fingers against her neck as he adjusted her scarf. 

Cheeks red from more than just the biting cold outside, Mercedes pinched his hand with a sideways glance when he tried to ‘help her’ with her coat. “Honestly, Sylvain.”

Sylvain simply chuckled and withdrew his hands. “Just trying to make sure you don’t catch a cold.” He paused, smile shifting to something more teasing. Sylvain leaned down, one hand lightly curled around to rest on her hip. 

He must have said something filthy, as Mercedes flushed even deeper but as she opened her mouth Felix interjected.

”Did you really come all this way to flirt at my doorstep?”

Sylvain withdrew from Mercedes, who sighed and smoothed her clothes over, and jabbed his thumb at the door behind them with a lazy smirk, “Of course not. Brought you a gift.”

“Shitty gift. Take it back.”

Sylvain laughed, a nameless tension rolling off his shoulders, but that look in his gaze remained.

Felix ignored it. 

Mercedes stepped forward, all grace once again now that Sylvain peeled himself away. She smiled, “I’m glad to see you in good health, Felix.”

Was he? Felix couldn’t not remember the last night he actually slept properly these past three months. It showed on his features, the dark that hung under his eyes and the pallor of his skin, and the way his posture leaned, a ragged tension in his walk rather than the fluid grace he was known for. Good health? What a joke.

Mercedes laced her fingers together and took a breath, blue eyes bright. “I came to help.”

Felix did not want help. Did not ask for anyone’s help. 

But he kept his mouth shut.

She pressed on, her voice steady. “I don’t mean to be too forward, but may I ask where she is?” The tips of her fingers shook. 

Felix did not have to ask why or whom she was speaking of. 

“With the wet nurse.” He pointed down the hall to the left, “Last door on the right, ask for Irina — she’ll show you the way. She’s the only old hag here, can’t miss her.” Felix kept his voice as steady as hers and his hands did not tremble.

“There are politer ways to describe a person,” Mercedes sighed. Even so, she nodded her head with a simple “thank you” and with the same single minded determination he had seen in her time and again on the battlefield, she squared her shoulders and set off down the hall. She did not stop nor look back, though her hands at her side still shook ever so slightly. 

Sylvain watched her go.

Felix didn’t.

Silence settled only for a beat, long enough to allow Mercedes’ exit before Sylvain broke it. 

“Are you....” He paused, as if searching for the words. His smile had weakened to something flimsy and uncertain and he rubbed the back of his neck. “You holding up ok?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Felix snapped.

“Hey, I’m just worried about you.” Sylvain’s frown matched Felix’s scowl and his hand dropped. The movement caused Sylvain’s wedding ring to glint in the candle light.

For reasons Felix would rather ignore, it just pissed him off all the more. When he spoke, his words were a cold heat that sliced the air between them. “Not everyone has the luxury or freedom to fall apart, Sylvain.”

Sylvain stepped forward and reached for him, that pained expression on his face. “Fe-“

”_Don’t._” 

Sylvain froze, hand out-stretched. The candlelight still flickered off his ring.

Felix turned away, ignoring the wounded, gutted expression on Sylvain’s face. ”Let Mercedes say her peace or whatever goodbyes she needs to placate her until spring and then go home.” Felix sighed, his voice cold and tired. “Just go _home_, Sylvain.”

The sound of his footsteps as he left echoed oddly loud in the thick silence in the foyer. 

Felix did not look back.

Sylvain did not stop him.

* * *

With the end of the War and peace beginning to settle in the kingdom, the days and early evenings mostly saw Felix holstered away in his father’s old study. He hated the room, really, with its old records in floor to ceiling bookshelves and mementos of both his father and Glenn tucked away throughout the room. Hated the stack of paperwork and notes in his father’s neat, proper penmanship. Hated the old, carefully folded papers hidden in the back of the bottom drawer in desk that were filled with nothing but shaking, crude letters from a time when a certain child was just learning to write and practiced by writing notes. Hated the odd, too familiar knickknacks and the knight spurs of his brother’s hidden alongside the old notes. 

Felix hated this room. 

But it was the study of the Duke. 

And like it or not, Felix remained burdened with that title. Another shadow he lived under. 

Annette had tried to help, to ease the tension from the room. She placed small potted flowers in the windowsill and left her own pile of notes here and there when she used the books stored here for reference. There was even a pile of homework paperwork still awaiting her attention from the students she taught in town. 

But the plant had withered and the homework lay forgotten. 

Felix ignored it. 

He ignored a lot of things now.

“You don’t think you were a bit harsh?”

The voice snaps him out of his thoughts and he pushes up from the desk he had been leaning over, a frown already on his lips.

Annette hovers by the window, pale in the candlelight and her brow creased with worry.

He had not heard her come in. It should not surprise him anymore, but he never did learn, did he?

Felix merely scoffed. “Not particularly, no.”

She sighed, her fingers twirling a lock of her hair as she turned her gaze to the window, the view beyond black with the coming storm and nightfall. 

Silence settled between them, Felix tried to busy himself with the work before him, the letters and addresses that needed his attention. But the words blurred and scrambled together in his vision. Something coiled in his throat, heavy and cold. The ring on his left hand itched and burned against his skin, cold and colder still to the touch. 

“Hey, Annette?”

His voice a whisper, barely possible through the lump in his throat that choked him. 

“Yes?” She hummed and he felt her gaze on him once more.

But he did not look up. 

“Can you sing me that song? Crow and Sparrow?”

”It—“ Annette fumbled. “It’s not done yet.”

”Anything is fine.” When had his hands begun to shake? Felix curled and pressed them into the wood of the desk. Now wasn’t the time nor the place for him to break, to shatter to pieces upon the floor. Too much to do, so much left in the wake of those who....

“_Please_, Annette.”

If he could just hear her sing, if he could hear that song ... somehow, some way, things would work out. The pain would ease, the air would lose the choking weight in it and he could breathe again, the nightmares that haunted his few hours of sleep would cease, the house —..... this house, too big and too cold and too empty would finally feel like a home again. If he could just hear even a single verse of the song she had been writing, the melody she composed based off the two of them. A melody of _them_. 

Annette sighed and he could tell by the pitch of her voice and breath that she was near tears. “I can’t, Felix.”

He looked up, and the world blurred beyond her. ”_Please_, Annette.”

It was hard to breathe past the pain in his throat that seemed to echo all the way to his heart. Or perhaps it was the other way around. But with Annette shaking her head and trembling before him, arms clasped over her own heart, Felix’s attention narrowed to her rather than himself.

Perhaps that is why he did the one thing he vowed not to. 

He reached out. To her.

His hand crossed the distance between them, his ring catching in the candlelight as he reached to brush the tears from her cheeks. At that moment—

“Felix?”

The voice shattered the moment like glass. 

Felix whipped his head to the side to see Sylvain in the doorway, white knuckled grip on the doorframe and an expression on his face Felix recognized but had not the courage to name. 

Thick silence hangs between them for a heartbeat before Sylvain speaks, his voice carefully even. “Who were you talking to?”

Felix’s gaze falls back to his still extended hand, reaching for empty space before him. The ring on his finger burns against his skin. “No one,” he replies quietly after a too long pause, hand dropping to his side like dead weight. He never did learn, did he? 

Sylvain scowls, concern heavy on every inch of him, from his eyes that bore into Felix, to his hands still gripping the doorframe too tightly, to his body tensed and poised ready to lunge or defend. “Felix—“

”_Don’t._” 

Felix turns away from Sylvain for the second time today, but there is no where to run. 

Silence coils around them, heavy and uncertain. 

“We all miss her,” is all Sylvain manages to say.

Felix closes his eyes, tries to remember how to breathe through the pain in his chest.

_Not like I do._

He says nothing and tries to ignore it, just as he does so many things now.

But the ring is heavy on his hand, the hole in his soul so crushing, and her melody still plays on in his head.

**Author's Note:**

> Watched season 2 episode 1 of a certain show and emotions hit me like a goddamn freight train. Bonus points if the title and hints in the story tell you what show slaughtered me.
> 
> Also: do you ever think about the fact that Felix might think himself cursed, especially if you recruit him onto certain routes bc everyone he has ever cared for dies? Never strong enough, no matter how hard he tries, those he loves still leave him behind in the end.  
A shield with nothing to protect...


End file.
